OCZ Quietly Introduces 7mm Vertex 3 LP SSDs for Ultrathin Laptops.

OCZ Technology, a leading maker of solid-state drive, has quietly added low-profile - 7mm - 2.5" high-performance Vertex 3 solid-state drive into lineup. The new drives are aimed at thin laptops that use 2.5"/7mm hard disk drives, a relatively limited amount of models now, but which may get much broader as notebooks in general are getting thinner.

OCZ Vertex 3 LP SSDs are available in 60GB, 120GB, 240GB and 480GB capacities and are based on SandForce SF-2281 controller and multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory. The drives use Serial ATA-6Gb/s interface and provide up to 550MB/s maximum read performance, up to 520MB/s write performance, depending on the model. Maximum power consumption of Vertex LP is 3W in active mode. The drives fully support such technologies as TRIM and SMART.

As increasingly thinner notebooks begin their domination, the new 7mm height 2.5" form-factor easily integrates into the latest mobile computing platforms. At present there are not a lot of ultra-thin notebooks that utilize 2.5"/7mm hard drives, but their number is increasing and given the current trends will gain importance in the coming quarters.